The Lonely Rationalist

I can't say I know anything about the issue, but let me ask this: If the oil companies buy up these patents for hydrogen cars, that assumes the cars would actually be more efficient than the current oil-using cars, and therefore harm the oil industry. Now, if this is true, 2 issues present themselves: 1. Why don't the inventors of such amazing cars go into business making them? Surely something so great would easily be funded by banks or another company who could recognize what it would do to the auto industry. 2. If the oil companies still get ahold of the patents, then why don't they go into business supplying power to these cars? After all, they could make more money with this amazing new car than the current ones.

Since this conversation has mainly focused on whether the government should regulate industries to prevent things like this from happening, here's a qustion I haven't seen answered: Should the government take action to stop the current oil leak, or should it be left solely to the corporation responsible?

Tony Stark dies. But don't worry, turns out it was all just a dream of Gwyneth Paltrow's.

My god, this is turning into a veritable flame war. Can't we all simmer down a bit and try to discuss the issues without referring to the moral character/intelligence of each other here?

Then what about someone who escapes an intolerable tyranny who wants to rely on the welfare state? Or how about someone who wants to comes from a democratic country and wants to live productively? And who decides which immigrants are productive and which ones aren't? You?

How about The Wicker Man? HOW'D IT GET BURNED!?

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=173626 Saying "You'll probably end up dead," and then showing a picture of Theo Van Gogh's corpse is a threat in my book, albeit a cowardly one. Oh, and for good measure, the head of this website said that the creators of South Park "should feel threatened by what they did." And he praised Bin Laden's "sacrifice for the religion."

Funnily enough, the site that made threats against South Park has been hacked: http://www.revolutionislam.com/

If, like me, you were looking forward to last night's new South Park episode, you were baffled. Not only was Muhammad's image no shown (No surprise there), but Comedy Central actually bleeped out any mention of his name. Furthermore, a 30 second speech by one of the main characters, which did not mention Muhammad or Islam, about fear and intimidation was totally removed by the network. Going to South Park's website to see the episode brings this message up: http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267116/ The creators of South Park respond here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/...eators-respond/ Furthermore, an old episode from Season 5 which featured Muhammad has been removed from South Park's website as well: http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103940/ This is really just pathetic. A network like Comedy Central, which fashions itself as "edgy," and "progressive," now refuses to risk offending Muslims just because of a few empty threats.

Here's the thing: Though I agree that it's possible to get enough people on your side to make it so that the USA, and perhaps even Russia and China, would not go after you (Not that that would be easy), once you are revealed to the world, every looter becomes aware of a prime spot for looting. Any sort of pirate organization, environmental group, or dictatorial country could easily come to where you are and take over/destroy the seamount city.

Oh, I know Google Earth isn't a live picture. I just meant that eventually, the plan would be discovered, even if it did take years. I was just saying that it seems pointless to think it could remain secret indefinitely (Unless Google earth only takes pictures of land masses and frequented shipping lanes (I am unaware of Google earth's entire method of taking photographs). If it WAS possible to hide this (And I'd love to be convinced that it is) forever, I'd be this plan's biggest supporter.

Interesting... But most of that seamass is still more than 20m below sea level, and the fact that it was pointed out via Google Earth makes me crack up. What's to stop people from simply seeing a city built there via that? Unless you are proposing building it when a crisis is in full swing and google earth isn't operating... But in such a case it would probably be impossible to build such a project. I think we have to accept that any sort of Galt's Gulch, barring some sort of biodome/cave complex (Forgive the sci-fi fantasy of mine) is going to be seen by others, and that the only way a dream like this could become a reality is if we could craft a society that no country would ever care to seize.

You seem to know quite a bit about this kind of thing, and I admit I'm very curious about such a project. However, as to my first question, do you know of a specific seamount that is so uninteresting to never be studied by any sort of scientific or environmental organization? The main problem to me seems to be that if a seamount so deserted exists at all, it has so few resources to be exploited that having a city there would be worthless.

Now IF we could find a seamount that was totally uninteresting, and thus never studied by scientists or environmentalists, nor observed via satellite, and IF this seamount happened to be far away from any sort of shipping routes, we'd have a start. Of course, then we have to ask "How do we prevent radio signals from this seamount from being picked up," "How do we keep its construction secret," "How could it be self-supporting," "How could it be made to be protected from natural phenomena," etc. Of course, if anyone could answer all this, hell, I'm in!

/sigh It always depresses me to think of how improbable a "Galt's Gulch" would be in real life.

Considering the definition of belief is: 1 : a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing 2 : something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group 3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence -<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belief">belief</a> ...Yes, I would say axioms require belief.

Forgive me if it should be obvious, but what does that symbol mean? Is it a combination of an "O" for Objectivism, and an "I" for, well, I?

Why on earth do you say that? Please explain exactly how you disagree with that.

As awesome as that would be, I doubt we have enough skilled/rich people to be self-sustaining.

You won't be able to come up with a short response. If you said "It's THEIR money," they'd say something along the lines of "And they have a duty to help the poor because (X)." Then you'd have to deny that claim, and they'd make more arguments for you to deny, and so on. So in the end, you'd have to explain the entire Objectivist ethics.

Are you saying that you can't think of a correct response to the claim, or are you asking how we would respond to this person's statement alone? If the former, I'd say that those investing in the World Cup have every right to do it because it's THEIR money. If he wants more money to help the poor, then let him earn the money with which to do it, rather than bitching that those smarter than him aren't using their money for his whims. If the latter, I'd agree with Maximus. There are millions (If not billions) of morons who say stuff like this without thinking about the issues. There's no point talking to them, they'll never change.

Land of the censored internet? No thanks.

I believe he was banned...

Isn't that a little drastic?

I'd be happy to see an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting this, especially if so many states hate it.